So you can go through her terrible speech and read some old Gingrich op-ed and painstakingly find every sentence or phrase that rings similar, if you want, and cry "plagiarism!" But we gave up on that once we read this bit of Palin's speech: "Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan...." She then goes on to summarize many of the things Newt Gingrich wrote about Ronald Reagan.

So, yes, it is not by any standard a very good speech, and it is quite lazy, but to call it "plagiarism" is bullshit.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Yes well there is a black fellow on the cover, I suppose. Here's the magazine's actual, revolutionary reporting of Tommie Smith and John Carlos' iconic black power salute on the medal podium:

Beyond Mexican riots and Mexican altitude, the third and what should have been one of the more obvious threats to Olympic peace was the likelihood of a demonstration by a small group of American Negro athletes led by John Carlos, Tommie Smith and Lee Evans. They had been hinting at it for months but communication between them and the U.S. Olympic officials broke down long ago, and the officials seemed satisfied to fill the void with a kind of tacit, Pollyanna belief in the surfacing power of harmony.

The Olympic 100 meters passed without incident because Jim Hines was the winner and Hines does not buy all that the militants try to sell. Then Smith won the 200. He won it in courageous style. He had torn a groin muscle in the semifinals and had to be iced down and taped from the waist to the bottom edge of his running shorts in order to continue. In the final, two hours later, Carlos held the lead with 50 yards to go. At that point, as he is wont to do when on the verge of victory, Carlos looked around. He need not have bothered. Smith, settling down in the stretch, was streaking past him. Carlos broke stride, and then when he looked to his right the Australian Peter Norman was passing him for second place. It was a fine race, one that Smith could be proud of, but he will not be remembered for his 19.8. He will be remembered for what happened next.

On the victory stand during the playing of the national anthem, Carlos and Smith made their now famous black glove gesture. They were booed. At a press conference afterward Carlos flayed into white America in a familiar soliloquy, demanding as he did that reporters quote him accurately or not at all.

Advertising: Bullshit as usual.

[Ads from Copyranter. The original SI story here.]

The Post reports: It's time to get your fucking guns out, downtown party people:

Downtown Manhattan, the city's party mecca, has been hit by an alarming spike in vicious street violence.

Assaults in Greenwich Village lead the frightening upturn, with a whopping 43 percent increase so far this year compared with the same period in 2008.

Crime's also up in Tribeca and the East Village and the LES! Is it the angry poors finally seeping out of their own neighborhood and doing some reverse gentrification? Probably not! Police blame it on drunk party people—not a classic sign of a painful recession!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Take a look at the Post's scary crime chart , at left. The first thing you should note is that the figure for the East Village should be 27.7%, not 42.9%. [You can look these things up, too!].

Now, consider the very, very worst neighborhood on here: the shadowy streets of Greenwich Village. Yes, year-to-date felony assaults are up by almost 43%. What does that mean? It means there have been 40 assaults so far this year, 12 more than this time last year. That means that, on average, there have been about two more assaults every three weeks, in the entire precinct. Not exactly South Bronx 1985 numbers. Oh and look, in that same precinct, robbery, burglary, and grand larcenies are all down by double digits, and the murder count for the year is 0. Facts which did not find their way into the Post's public service piece about the "VIOLENT CRIME WAVE."

Although I did once see a dude get knocked the fuck out in broad daylight on 14th and 6th!

In conclusion you are still much safer walking around Greenwich Village than, say, trying to steal Col Allan's drink.
[NYP. Also Alex Balk has a theory on this stuff. Pic of typical downtown NYC crime via Flickr.]

1976. Gerald Ford is leading our nation. Swine flu is detected in the populace. Panic! A history in NYT headlines:

February 20, 1976:" U.S. Calls Flu Alert On Possible Return Of Epidemic's Virus; U.S. FLU ALERT SET ON EPIDEMIC VIRUS"

Sounds familiar!

March 25, 1976: "Ford Urges Flu Campaign To Inoculate Entire U.S.; He Will Ask Congress for $135 Million to Make Vaccine for a New Virus to Avert Fall and Winter Epidemics Ford Urges U.S. Flu Campaign To Inoculate Entire Population"

Bold Action!

April 10, 1976: "$135 Million Voted By Senate to Fund Flu Immunization"

Unquestioning political acquiescence!

May 21, 1976: "Race for a Swine Flu Vaccine Began; In a Manhattan Lab Race to Develop Swine Flu Vaccine Began in a Manhattan Lab"

Feature stories!

June 9, 1976: "Experts in Europe Question U.S. Plan For Mass Flu Shots; Europeans Question U.S. Flu-Shot Plan"

Europe: Always trying to disrupt America's bold actions with "science." Shut up, Europe!

October 13, 1976: "SWINE FLU PROGRAM IS HALTED IN 9 STATES AS 3 DIE AFTER SHOTS; DEATHS OCCUR IN PITTSBURGH But No Evidence is Found That Fatalities Among Elderly Were a Result of Vaccinations States Halt Swine Flu Program as 3 Die After Shots"

The bold action has backfired!

November 24, 1976: "Swine Flu Victim, Back on Job, Asserts Regular Flu Was Worse"

The problem wasn't that bad in the first place!

December 17, 1976: "SWINE FLU PROGRAM SUSPENDED IN NATION; DISEASE LINK FEARED; 94 CASES OF PARALYSIS CITED U.S. Aides Act Because of Concern That Shots May Be Connected to Guillain-Barre Syndrome"

In fact the cure was worse than the disease!

February 5, 1977: "Swine Flu Program Brings $10.7 Million in Claims; 104 Suits Already Filed Are Viewed as only the First Wave"

The government must pay for its bold action!

November 16, 1978: "Around the Nation; Over $2.64 Billion in Claims Filed in Swine Flu Program"

And pay some more!

October 17, 1980: "$49 Million in Swine Flu Vaccine To Be Destroyed by Government"

And pay some more! The end.

Here's what we have today: 20 confirmed cases of this flu, which has killed nobody here. It'll spread for a while. Okay. There are plenty more deadly diseases already here, killing people every day! Even in Mexico, the epicenter of the deadly outbreak, and home to a far, far worse health care system than we have, it's only killed 103 people. That's a lot fewer people than have been killed in the Juarez drug war this year. This is a page B-3 story that's gone all A-1.

The LA Times, which now has an editorial staff of like, ten people? maybe? met some shady "political operatives" who love this wonderful new media landscape, because it allows them to plant whatever bullshit they want and watch it grow into cable news stories and "serious" analysis pieces.

Well, Times, some of us have been on this beat for a while! But hey, you got some neat quotes from your unnamed political hack sources.

One operative told me this week about planting attacks on opponents in partisan blogs, knowing the stories could bleed into mainstream news outlets, without leaving any incriminating fingerprints. Another described how he got green reporters to write stories (no campaign cash wasted!) on ads that the candidate had no intention of ever paying to put on TV.

By "green reporters" do you by chance mean, say, the entire staff of The Politico? They sure did a lot of that this last campaign season! (Hell, everyone did. They are just the most transparent about their symbiotic relationship with the venal hacks they allow to use them to "drive the stories" or whatever they call getting a Drudge link and a segment on Hardball.)

Here is a sad bit:

The consultants cited a few recently departed veteran journalists who wouldn't fall for such funny business: Time magazine's Jay Carney, the Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman (the Tribune, like the L.A. Times, is owned by Tribune Co.) and our paper's Dan Morain, who took a buyout last month and went to work for a lawyers' lobbying association.

Anyway, breaking: there is a lot of bullshit out there and everyone just repeats it, all the time, unquestioningly, because all the smart people were laid off.

Page Six first reported on Boulton and Wenner last year — that they were running around town together and making out in front of the Time Warner Center. But Wenner denied, and we heard the gossp was all manufactured by Boulton himself — a "weird press play by Neal." Which no one at the time understood. "What motivation would Boulton actually have for this?" a commenter asked.

Someone whispered to New York that Wenner and Boulton were still dating, but the magazine's website didn't see fit to stand behind that story. It's the story that just won't stick.

But Boulton, not at all shy about emailing bloggers, or being quoted, somehow stayed in the news. An "irate lady source" in February sent Queerty two remarkably well-photographed and posed shots of Boulton nuzzled up to her model-perfect body (including the one at top). Boulton protested, probably a bit too much, without actually denying he had sexed the vixen. Did he send, or arrange to have sent, the tell-all email from his statuesque "lover?"

As time went on, Boulton started making direct appeals. In July he sent us a bizarre letter advising women not to flatter themselves that he might be hitting on them in bars, because he's just being friendly. Then we got seemingly random emails from supposed women admirers trying to get in touch with Boulton, and from people claiming to see him leaving MTV's offices (that was him, he merrily confirmed for us, in talks about a pilot, which we never heard about again).

And now, with the book agent deal and the purported reality show, we finally see (duh) what motivation the Genre editor might have for whipping up interest in his WILD and CRAZY "pansexual" lifestyle, "pansexual" being a pointless synonym for "bisexual," presumably plastered on Boulton's website because it sounds sexier and more marketable than the latter.

The endgame is familiar to any fameball, straight out of the Julia Allison playbook: Reality show, book, internet startup. A pedestrian play rooted in already-pedestrian notions of sexual decadence and roleplaying. Neal Boulton, you're boring us.

1. The setup—Say, for argument's sake, that Obama did order an expensive, custom-made ring to thank his wife for her help in the campaign. Would the chosen designer of that ring run out and immediately tell the press all about it? Not just the press, but the Daily Mail, a sleazeball London tabloid? No, because that designer would subsequently be destroyed by Barack Obama, the president of the US.

2. The story itself—What's the sourcing for this big story? Did Obama sheepishly acknowledge his gift with a smile once it broke? No. The sole source is a "spokesman" for the "designer" of the ring. Who also gave this ridonkulous quote:

'For obvious privacy reasons I cannot reveal the cost of the ring but bearing in mind it is made from rhodium or black gold and encrusted with diamonds you can be sure it will cost thousands of pounds.'

Mmm hmm. Classy. It's also painfully clear that the story is filled out by fun facts about rhodium pulled off some press release. Did you know that "rhodium was chosen as the material for the disc presented to Beatle Paul McCartney for being history's all-time best-selling songwriter and recording artist"? Barack Obama obviously did, which is why he insisted on ordering this here ring!

3. The designer—Supposedly Obama has ordered this ring to be specially made by Giovanni Bosco, an "A-list" Italian designer. Really? If he's so A-list, why has his name never—never!—appeared in Nexis, the database of all things media? If he's so A-list, why does his website look so D-list? And why does the "Press" section seem to be full mostly of his own ads? Decidedly non-Presidential.

So the worldwide media has bitten big-time on a story that was almost certainly planted by this jewelry designer himself, or a very enterprising flack. And everybody wins ("everybody" meaning "Right wing media outlets" and "Giovanni Bosco")! Good show, Giovanni Bosco. Thanks to all this press you will probably be able to sell some rings that are real. [Pic via]

[UPDATE: And the Obama camp just denied it.]

[UPDATE 2, via Politico: Tommy Christopher at AOL got a head-scratching statement from the spokesman for the jeweler in question, who also denies the story as reported:

I regret to inform you that because of reports so wrong and clearly different from the reality of our statements, we decided to not issue statement on this matter.

Unfortunately, we were negatively affected by read on national and foreign media news stories that have no basement[sic], and in excess of the objective reality.

I inform you that we have no intention to disseminate more information about this story.

• Shuster was suspended from MSNBC in February for saying Bill and Hillary Clinton "pimped out Chelsea." Which was a total overreaction on the part of his bosses, but they do call the shots, so it counts as a strike.
• In August, he ended up in an extended, horridly awkward on-air argument with Joe Scarborough about Iraq. Scarborough was at least as obnoxious and provocative, but Shuster did his part to keep the fight going and ended up looking like he was on the receiving end of a smackdown. Particularly after Scarborough slammed him for sleeping through three scheduled appearances on Morning Joe.
• Now this!

None of this is to say the ex-Fox Newser is about to be fired. Shuster's colleagues Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Scarborough had plenty of on-air fights as well. Shuster is in the good company of bloggers at the New Republic, Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, all of whom were fooled by Gorllin. (Olbermann, contrary to Eisenstadt's claim, did not buy an Eisenstadt claim that Joe the Plumber was related to Charles Keating.)

Your night editor (sigh) was taken in, as well, writing a post about Paris Hilton's relatives angrily phoning up McCain about one of his campaign ads. Do I get any points for rejecting five subsequent tips from his site as suspicious? Didn't think so.

Shuster, though, will probably need to watch his step a bit more closely going forward than the rest of us. (Watch his Eisenstadt face plant in the video up top.)

RedState heard Palin's teleprompter broke and she soldiered on like a pro! A guy who watched the speech in view of her teleprompter says that is not true, at all, wtf. Too late! The story's already being repeated as gospel!

Drudge says Oprah refuses to have Sarah Palin on her show! Oprah says there hasn't been any discussion, we only just heard of this woman a week ago, wtf, I'll have her on later. Who cares?

Hell, on a macro level various people call Sarah Palin a "maverick" and "reformer" and then she is one. Democrats can't replicate this strategy because there is not a legitimate news organization in the world that would unquestioningly use Kos (or even HuffPo??) as a source.

But if they want to try we'll happily post an item on that one time Martin Balsam and Robert Shaw hijacked Joe Biden's Acela and killed the engineer and he outwitted all of them and drove the train to safety. Now we wait for Chris Matthews to take the bait!

We have no definitive answers but we point you to two things. Number one: the Tasaday. A remote, isolated tribe in the Philippines living as if it was still the stone age. They knew nothing of the outside world! They became a media sensation in the early 1970s. But!

Then, just a month after the fall of President Marcos in 1986, sensational reports on the Tasaday again appeared in newspapers and television. These reports, however, were calling the 1971 story a hoax. In the chaotic month following Marcos's downfall, foreign journalists had been able to slip into the area. They found the Tasaday living in regular houses in the area, wearing western clothes, and tending gardens just like those of other rural Manobo people in the southern Philippines.

Oh, and also: Nick Douglas reminded us of the beloved Richard Dreyfus classic Kippendorf's Tribe which is more or less about the same thing.

Anyways. We don't know! There seems to be very little verifiable information in this story beyond two photos, which could be lost extras from Apocalypto for all we know! Plus some nonsense from the Brazilian government about how they have to follow the Prime Directive and not interfere with these tribespeople's lives. Which, on the whole, seems ok with us, because those chaps from Blur were pretty much spot-on about Modern Life, eh?

In addition, the images are being used to prevent massive disruptive logging in the Amazon by saying, look, there are ppl who live here! So whatevs! If it's a hoax it looks to be in the service of a good cause.

• 2. Rememberthe twins who accidentally married each other! A classic bullshit story that probably garnered CNN millions of views.
• 3. The man regrowing his own finger story! It involved pixie dust and still everyone who linked bought it.
• 4. Aliza Shvarts violating human biology by impregnating herself a million times and then inducing abortions with magic herbal remedies. Not even the abortion pill, but herbs. Honestly.
• 5. Jenkem.

Most of these stories were eventually revealed as frauds, but usually not until days later—always well after everyone had forwarded them to everyone they knew. And this shit happens every day. Especially with almost any story involving nude people doing something outrageous, especially in far away places. (That one's on Fark!)

So. If you see egregious bullshit linked to on some high-traffic message board or blog, let us know, and we will publicly shame everyone involved.